Technologies

The Google Pixel 10 Pro Might Have the Best Phone Display for Gaming

While lagging behind in other areas, Google’s flagship is a standout in showing gameplay.

Google launched its latest Pixel 10 series, including the standard model and the more powerful Pixel 10 Pro, back in September, offering iterative hardware upgrades and new AI features. But for those of us who love to burn through our battery life playing games on premium phones, there’s another concern: How is gaming on the Pixel 10 Pro?

As a flagship phone with the most powerful specs Google has ever put into a (nonfolding) phone, the Pixel 10 Pro exceeds the baseline expectations for a $999 phone. (As I write this, you can buy a Pixel 10 Pro for $799 — $200 off.) It has a sharp OLED display and high-performance specs, so it has little trouble playing the latest games.

But some of Google’s hardware choices make the Pixel 10 Pro limited in ways that the OnePlus 15 and iPhone 17 Pro are not — namely, in storage and charging. Google’s phone also has a lot to live up to with its gaming capabilities, as previous Pixel phones haven’t been known for their processing power and graphics rendering, regularly scoring lower on performance benchmarks than Apple’s and OnePlus’ flagship phones, which pack some of the most powerful processors available today. Ultimately, the Pixel 10 Pro isn’t quite the absolute best pick for gaming among the best phones you can buy today.

Yet there are a few ways the phone shines as bright as — if not literally brighter — than the best Android phones and iPhones. Its gaming aptitude adds value to an already powerful phone with standout photo and AI capabilities.

How it feels to play games on the Pixel 10 Pro

On a basic level, the Pixel 10 Pro is great for firing up games and playing to your heart’s content. Its design is easy to hold, with flat metallic sides and curved corners that fit my fingers nicely when I rotate the phone horizontally to play most games. When I want more analog control with buttons and triggers, the handset slides in securely to my Backbone One external controller.

Games on the Pixel 10 Pro are a sight to behold. Its 6.3-inch OLED display shows sharp details with its 2,856×1,280-pixel resolution, and colors are vivid with its HDR10 Plus support. Action is smooth with the screen’s 120Hz refresh rate, whether in slower platformers or fast-moving first-person shooters like Call of Duty: Mobile.

Best of all, its 3,300-nit maximum brightness makes the screen easily seen in full daylight and nearly lights up a room in full darkness. This makes hues really pop in vibrant games like Dead Cells — it’s a true leg up over other smartphones with screens that don’t get as bright. The latest premium phones have gotten similarly bright (the iPhone 17 Pro Max tops out at 3,000 nits), but even phones a year or two older are substantially dimmer, with my personal iPhone 15 Pro Max reaching up to 2,000 nits brightness.

The Pixel 10 Pro’s Tensor G5 chip may not have topped our charts in benchmark tests, falling more in line with performance from 2024’s flagships, but it’s plenty powerful enough to run the games I tested on it. The phone’s 16GB of RAM contributes to that smoothness: I cranked Genshin Impact up to its maximum graphics settings, and despite a warning that my phone might overheat (I didn’t notice it get that much warmer), it handled 60 frames per second gameplay just fine.

The phone’s other capabilities were fine for gaming, including serviceable speakers and a respectable battery life. The latter surprised me, as older Pixel phones seemed less efficient and drained faster than competing premium handsets — and indeed, the Pixel 10 Pro ranks below the top 10 phones with the best battery life released last year, according to our lengthy battery tests of 2025 phones. While playing games, the battery didn’t drain particularly quickly, losing around 2% for each 4-5 minute match in Call of Duty: Mobile.

The Pixel 10 Pro’s gaming challenges, and where it sits for us

The Pixel 10 Pro’s biggest gaming flaw is its storage. It’s pretty shocking to see it start at $1,000 yet only pack 128GB, while most other premium phones have bumped their starting storage up to 256GB for the exact same starting price.

When some mobile games can be 50GB or more, this is a paltry amount, which shrinks quickly for people who take a lot of photos and videos at high resolutions. As I was loading up games on my Pixel 10 Pro, I was shocked that I had run out of space to download graphical extras in Call of Duty: Mobile and had to go delete some videos I’d taken.

A lesser issue lies in keeping the phone charged up. The Pixel 10 Pro’s battery gets decent but not spectacular life, with a 4,870-mAh capacity that’s surpassed by many of its premium rivals, especially the 7,300-mAh OnePlus 15.

But topping off Google’s flagship phone takes time, as it has a maximum 30-watt wired charging speed or 15-watt wireless charging. That likely means it’ll take over an hour to get it back to full from 0%, which takes a lot longer than some of the faster-charging phones out there, like the OnePlus 15, which went from 1% to 73% in half an hour thanks to its 80-watt wired charge rate. Compare that to the Pixel 10 Pro, which added 44% in the same amount of time.

Read more: The OnePlus 15 Is One of the Best Mainstream Phones for Gamers

Unlike some other premium phones, the Pixel 10 Pro does have its own MagSafe-like magnets aligned in a circle on its rear cover, called Pixelsnap, which is convenient for wireless charging, even if it’s slow. Google phone fans can get faster charging with the Pixel 10 Pro XL, which supports 45-watt wired and 25-watt wireless charging, though they’ll have to pay more for the bigger phone.

Neither of these issues are huge setbacks that impede the Pixel 10 Pro’s gaming capability — there’s just nothing in its features that make it stand out above other premium phones, aside from its bright and vivid display. That’s not surprising, as Google’s phone excels in nongaming aspects, including AI photo features like Auto Best Take and Camera Coach.

If you’re a Pixel fan who also plays games, you’ll enjoy firing them up on the Pixel 10 Pro, which is a good all-around device. For those who want a phone with features that are specifically better for gaming, there are other handsets that’ll satisfy, like the OnePlus 15.

Technologies

Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt Trade Blows in Latest AI Slop Video, and Hollywood Won’t Stand for It

While some Hollywood icons are feeling doom and gloom over the AI-generated clip, labor unions are fighting back with legal threats.

Brad Pitt and Tom Cruise are trading blows in a viral AI-generated clip on social media, sparking backlash from the film industry. Chinese company ByteDance’s new video generation model, Seedance 2.0, allowed people to create fictional videos of real likenesses with short prompts. Irish filmmaker Ruairi Robinson used two lines to generate the clip of Pitt and Cruise fighting.

If ByteDance sounds familiar to you, it’s because the company also owns TikTok internationally, though it recently sold its US ownership of the social media and video-sharing platform to US companies. Oracle, MGX and Silver Lake each hold a 15% stake.

The actors in this latest viral AI slop video still don’t look like perfect re-creations — close-up shots of the fake Brad Pitt’s face, especially, have an «uncanny valley,» dreamlike AI look where the cuts blend into his flesh a little too smoothly. However, a CNET survey from earlier Tuesday showed that while 94% of US adults believe they encounter AI slop on social media, just 44% say they’re confident they can tell real videos from AI-generated ones.

One of the most inflammatory parts of the Pitt-Cruise video is the dialogue, as the computerized facsimiles of the actors fight over a supposed assassination plot regarding Jeffrey Epstein, the convicted sex offender who maintained ties to rich and powerful people worldwide. The two actors’ likenesses became a vehicle to push conspiracy theories that have been picking up steam as the millions of pages of redacted emails, receipts and other documents that make up the Epstein files continue to trickle out of the US Department of Justice.

Hollywood is fighting back as AI-generated content consumes and spits out actor likenesses and copyrighted content alike. Major studios and their labor forces alike have united to push back against the precedent set by the viral AI video.

According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Motion Picture Association demanded that ByteDance «immediately cease its infringing activity» through Seedance. SAG-AFTRA, the labor union that represents Hollywood performers, released a statement on Friday saying it «stands with the studios» in condemning the Seedance video generation model.

The Screen Actors Guild specifically pointed to Seedance’s unauthorized use of members’ faces, likenesses and voices as a threat that could put actors out of work.

«Seedance 2.0 disregards law, ethics, industry standards and basic principles of consent,» the actors’ guild said in its statement.

Representatives for the MPA and SAG-AFTRA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Similar videos generated by Seedance have depicted Star Wars characters dueling with lightsabers as well as Marvel superheroes Spider-Man and Captain America brawling. Disney issued a cease-and-desist order to ByteDance on Friday in response to these videos, which it alleges constitute copyright infringement, according to the BBC.

A representative for ByteDance didn’t immediately respond to CNET’s request for comment, but issued a statement to the BBC saying it is «taking steps to strengthen current safeguards as we work to prevent the unauthorized use of intellectual property and likeness by users.»

Following the viral incident, ByteDance updated its tool to prevent people from uploading images of real people for AI-generated content, but it remains to be seen how effective that policy will be. Certainly, it won’t curb the output of videos depicting fictional masked or anthropomorphic characters like Spider-Man or Mickey Mouse.

As AI models continue to create mediocre copies of cultural icons, this won’t be the first — or last — legal battleground for AI video generation.

Technologies

Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for Feb. 18, #983

Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for Feb. 18 #983.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s NYT Connections puzzle was great fun for me, as I’m the co-author of two pop-culture encyclopedias, one about the 1970s, and 1980s and the other about the 1990s. Two of the categories are retro-themed! Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.

The Times has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including the number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.

Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time

Hints for today’s Connections groups

Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.

Yellow group hint: Farrah hair.

Green group hint: Totally tubular!

Blue group hint: Bock-bock!

Purple group hint: Can refer to a dairy product or a cosmetic.

Answers for today’s Connections groups

Yellow group: Retro hair directives.

Green group: Retro slang for cool.

Blue group: Chicken descriptors.

Purple group: ____ cream.

Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words

What are today’s Connections answers?

The yellow words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro hair directives. The four answers are crimp, curl, feather and tease.

The green words in today’s Connections

The theme is retro slang for cool. The four answers are bad, fly, rad and wicked.

The blue words in today’s Connections

The theme is chicken descriptors. The four answers are bantam, crested, free-range and leghorn.

The purple words in today’s Connections

The theme is ____ cream. The four answers are heavy, shaving, sour and topical.

Technologies

Today’s Wordle Hints, Answer and Help for Feb. 18, #1705

Here are hints and the answer for today’s Wordle for Feb. 18, No. 1,705.

Looking for the most recent Wordle answer? Click here for today’s Wordle hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Connections, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.

Today’s Wordle answer is a word I thought I’d seen in Wordle before, but I guess not. The letters aren’t super common, so it may take a few guesses. If you need a new starter word, check out our list of which letters show up the most in English words. If you need hints and the answer, read on.